Protector Series 1: But What We Make
by Elliot M. Meredith
Summary: A series of grizzly murders has cast a shadow even in the gloomy depth of the deepest levels of the undercity of Coruscant. Neither the Jedi nor the CSF are doing anything about it. So without official support masterless padawan Zett Jukassa and clone sergeant Fox of the 501st reluctantly join forces to catch the Coruscant Ripper. (Sci-Fi; mystery; horror; some M/M romance)


»Are you hurt, lad?« The clone sergeant crouched down behind the burned out speeder wreck next to Zett and scanned the dark alley, blaster ready.

»There is no pain,« Zett hissed, pressing his right hand on his left shoulder. When he took it away it was covered in blood. »There is only the force.«

He had heard some of the older padawans say this when they got hurt during the gruelling exercises with Master Drallig, and he liked the idea. Right now he very much wished it to be true. Unfortunately it wasn't.

»It's back,« the sergeant said. His voice, though impersonal and metallic through the white plasteel helmet, sounded tense. Zett followed the clone's gaze. The monster had indeed returned. Only its large, black eyes reflected the little neon light filtering down from the more populated levels above them.

The sergeant aimed the blaster and pulled the trigger. The blue-white bolt illuminated the creature briefly in stark light: A good five times the size and weight of a human and covered in a thick, warty hide and wicked bony spines it was a predator's predator.

»Blazing Novas! Did you see that?«

The bolt had hit the creature square in the chest, but if anything that just seemed to annoy it. It's deep, angry growl made the whole alley thrum.

»It's an akk dog,« Zett said. He gritted his teeth, threw off his dark cloak, and stood up. »Your blaster is useless against its skin. Even lightsabers can barely hurt it.«

Zett was vaguely aware of how the sergeant's posture changed when he realized that he was crouching next to an apprentice Jedi – a junior member of an ancient monastic order of mystic force-wielding knights.

He unhooked a chromed metal tube from his belt. It was a foot long, had a brass pommel at the lower and something looking like an elegantly shaped muzzle at the upper end. When he triggered the hilt, it instantly emitted a stable 4 foot long plasma beam capable of cutting almost anything. Almost. Unfortunately not everything

What he had just said about the akk's skin was true. But the humming sound of his blade and the strong gyroscopic force, that pressed the hilt into his palms when he moved it, calmed his mind. The past three years had been constant turmoil and loss. Only in battle could Zett still find the undiluted clarity of the force and surrender to it.

»Stay here!« Zett said to the sergeant. »I don't need your help.«

»Maybe not,« the sergeant said. »I can still give it.«

He rolled onto his back, abandoning his cover, and began firing rapidly at the akk dog. »Go!«

The dog roared, crouched, and pounced. It touched down once, it's paws silent thunder, and propelled itself into the leap that would crush the clone. Zett knew he would only have a single chance. He had to strike true the first time, or the beast would kill them both.

He jumped.

The unpredictable, yet precise acrobatics of Shii-Cho, one of the seven forms of lightsaber combat, had always come easy to Zett. Many Jedi disregarded it as the basic and least of the forms, but to Zett it had always seemed to be the most natural. ›It's the easiest form to learn for for the unaccomplished swordsman,‹ Cin Drallig had told him once, ›but one of the hardest to truly master.‹

Zett somersaulted over the leaping dog. At the apex of his jump, as their paths crossed and he was upside down, sailing above the creature's head, he thrust his arms away from his body, down, and forced the blazing blue blade deep into the creature's eye.

The sergeant rolled out of the way barely in time before the monster crashed into the permacrete. It was dead.

Zett landed safely on his feet and extinguished his saber's blade.

»Are you okay, sergeant?« he asked and held out his hand.

The clone clasped Zett's hand and got up.

»I'm fine, sir.« He holstered his blaster. »But you need a medic.«

Zett looked at his shoulder. His dirty beige padawan's tunic was shredded, together with his skin and the surface layer of muscle. Everything was encrusted black with blood. He drew on the force to keep the agony at bay.

»The dog surprised me when it attacked out of the darkness.« Zett nodded down the lightless alley. »The mutated kind has no connection to the force. It makes them hard to sense. Don't worry. I'll have it taken care of in the temple.«

»With all due respect, sir, that's a load of bantha crap.« The sergeant removed his helmet. Zett had expected the familiar, attractive identical face all clone troopers shared. Instead the man was bald. His ears were curiously pointed. And a thick scar ran diagonally across his face, past his right eye and down to his mouth. It gave him a permanent squint and a lopsided grin.

Also, Zett noticed, his eyes were mismatched. The left one was the warm, dark brown he shared with all clone soldiers. But the right one, under the scar, was the same bright, cold blue as Zett's own eyes.

Zett realized he was staring and forced himself to look away.

»Let me see the wound.« Without the helmet the clone's voice was soft and warm. Even though Zett held a much higher military rank due to his position as Jedi padawan, he obeyed.

»What is your name, sergeant?« Zett asked. The clone took his arm and probed the wound with skilled fingers. Zett bit down on a whimper.

»Designation Cee Tee Ten Ten, sir.«

Zett looked up at him. The clone stared back down. Was that defiance, or just blank obedience? »Echo Company of the 501st, Sir. 3rd Platoon.«

Zett broke the eye contact, looked around. They were deep in the bowels of Coruscant, a city spanning an entire planet, and the seat of the Galactic Republic's government. Up on the surface, kilometers above them, they wouldn't be far from the Jedi Temple. But here, several levels below even the lowest inhabited parts of the vast city, was a different world.

Heaps of trash lined the stark duracrete walls, anything from broken droids to burned out speeders. Power cables and pipes, with diameters larger than either of them was tall, ran along the floor or rose with massive pillars to the higher levels. Everything was wet from continuous condensation rain of the undercity's local microclimate. The damp air tasted of volatile chemicals, of ash, and of decomposing organics.

»The wound is too deep to wait, sir. You'll need a bacta pack right now if you want to prevent infection and muscle degradation.«

»Do you have a medpack on you, sergeant?«

»Never without, sir.«

The clone knelt down next to Zett and took the gel-strips of disinfectant and cell-growth accelerant from the pack on his utility belt.

»Where is your squad, sergeant?«

»I'm... on patrol, sir. On my own.«

Zett looked at the clone again. The scarred grin was a mask. He tried to see past it. He sensed definitely defiance, but no deception. He nodded.

The sergeant applied the bandages. Zett wrinkled his nose at the sickly sweet smell of bacta gel. The relief, however, was immediate. The pain faded and Zett realized how much he had relied on adrenaline and pure willpower to remain standing. He had to steady himself on the sergeant's plasteel shoulder armor.

The clone pretended not to notice. »How about you, sir? Jedi are not exactly a common sight in the undercity.«

That was true enough. The Republic's peacekeepers had never paid much heed to the squalor underneath their own temple. And now, with the Galaxy wide civil war known alternately as the ›Separatist Crisis‹ or the ›Clone War‹, almost all Jedi were deployed to battlefields across hundreds of star systems.

And yet, for over a year now, Zett wasn't allowed to fight in the war anymore. But he couldn't bear just to sit in the temple either, and to do nothing but study quietly with the other masterless padawans and meditate.

»I like to keep busy. I was following up on something when the akk attacked me.«

»Didn't know there were... akk?« The sergeant gave Zett a questioning glance. The boy nodded. »Akk dogs on Coruscant.«

»I think they escaped from smugglers dealing in exotic creatures. Master Windu told us that he shut them down years ago. This one must have escaped and hidden out down here ever since.

The sergeant stowed away his medpack and got up. Zett flexed his shoulder tentatively. It remained tender and somewhat stiff, but the concentration-breaking agony was gone.«

»Thank you, sergeant.«

»Anytime, sir. Shall I accompany you to the nearest C.S.F. station and call a speeder?«

Zett gave him an irritated look. What did the sergeant think he was? Some lost little boy? »I can take care of myself. And anyway...« He wandered over to the dead akk. »I wonder, whether...«

Zett knelt down at the corpse's head. After all, he really had come down here to follow a lead.

»Hmm...« He ran his fingers along the razor sharp, palm-sized triangular teeth. Each of them was strong enough to bite through inches of durasteel.

There, a few shreds of fabric, soaked in blood and the giant dog's saliva.

»What do you have, sir?«

Zett ignored the clone. He closed his eyes and focused on the force – that mystical energy field created by, surrounding and connecting all life. While his training was far from complete he was able to sense the strings of life and identity that connected these shreds with whoever had apparently become akk fodder. There was hardly anything left, a mere glimmer of a shadow of the past.

Zett got up, followed his instinct. He heard the clone sergeant ask something, indistinct and from afar. He walked around a heap of trash, around some large durasteel tanks, hole-ridden and half melted from centuries of acidic rain. He could feel the trace fade.

He reached the area where the akk had first attacked him. It was even darker than the rest of the alley. The musty, coppery smell of the creature still lingered in that darkness. In one of the basement walls, barely visible at all despite its size, was a jagged hole, probably gnawed by a duracrete slug.

Zett went on all fours and crawled head first into the hole.

His hands found it first: Wet, cold, almost gelatinous. A heap of flesh and bones.

»How did you know it was here, sir?« The sergeant had followed him. The strong electrical torch on his wrist illuminated the remains. The clone's voice sounded suspicious.

»My connection to the force. It manifests as farsight. Sometimes I can see and feel events distant in space, or time if there's a connection.«

The sergeant smiled thinly. »I am aware of force powers,« he said. »Sir.«

What had the sergeant almost called him just now? Boy?« Zett frowned. The sergeant continued: »I was wondering how you knew to look for the body in the first place.«

Now Zett was curious himself. »Have you seen this before?«

»This victim? No.« The sergeant shone his wrist light all over the body. A Rodian, teal skin, the characteristic nubs along the skull, the expressive ears and trumpet shaped snout. But the body itself seemed deflated, like an empty sack.

The sergeant stuck the barrel of his blaster into a bloodless wound, lifted a flap of flesh. Zett knew what was coming, but he still felt a wave of horror.

»Empty. Hollowed out. Akk dog didn't do this. Probably found the cadaver, bit out chunks of the leg and hip. There. Rodian must've been already dead. Whatever did this tossed the body aside several days ago. Like trash.«

»Like the others,« Zett said. He looked at the clone's odd, disquieting face. Anywhere but at that rubbery shell of a body.

»Like the others,« the sergeant agreed. The clone looked back at Zett. And suddenly, in spite of the nausea, there was an electric current between them, a shared excitement.

»How many did you find?« the sergeant asked. »And where?«

»Three. Over the course of the past six weeks. All in the Temple District, but in the lower undercity. You?«

The sergeant leaned against a crumbling duracrete pillar and cleaned the muzzle of his blaster. »Seven. Also in the undercity, but further afield. Warehouse district to the east, and near the spaceport, north of here. Was investigating a series of droid thefts and industrial vandalism when I found the first.«

»Did you notice that the killer has been getting more and more skillful?«

»Yes! The early ones were a mess. But this one, look at it. No blood, neat cuts. If you put the missing organs back in and sewed him back up, you wouldn't even notice this had been done to him.«

Zett nodded. Suddenly he had to turn aside. He heaved, retched once. It was as if some invisible fist had gripped his stomach and squeezed. A thick stream of vomit gushed from his mouth over the trash littered floor. His throat and eyes burned.

Zett smiled weakly and wiped his mouth on the sleeve of his tunic.

»I bet you have never seen a Jedi do that before.«

»Indeed, sir.« The sergeant crouched down besides him. »But I've seen a lot of my brothers do it. I've done it myself. I wouldn't trust someone who wasn't human enough to feel this way.«

The sergeant tried to put a hand on Zett's shoulder, but the padawan sidestepped him. Was the clone patronizing him?

Zett gave him a sharp look. Either the clone didn't notice or pretended not to. Instead he said: »The C.S.F. doesn't give one Toydarian sickle about a handful of dead nameless vagrants in the undercity. The way they see it, the less of those there are, the better. And the Army only wants me to look into the industrial vandalism. Find separatist saboteurs.«

The sergeant searched Zett's face.

»Will the Jedi investigate this?«

Zett laughed. It sounded hollow in his own ears. »With the war going on? Unless it's a dead Jedi down here, or a senator, or some other dignitary, they won't even listen to the case.«

Both stared at the crumpled body in shared frustration.

The clone was the one to suggest it: »Could investigate together. You and me. Might make a decent team.«

Zett hesitated. He liked the sergeant, and that scared him.

»What about your platoon? Won't your commander mind?«

»Like I said, on patrol on my own. Job's to scout out separatist plots. Got a wide range of discretion what to look into. Can call in the C.S.F. or the Anti-Terrorism S.O.B.s once I got something to go on, but on my own until then.«

The sergeant frowned. »But how come your master has given you permission to crawl around the undercity on your own?«

»My Master is...« Zett's voice still hitched when he had to say it. »He was killed. In the war. I work alone now.«

»But... you're to young too be a knight. How old are you anyway? Still got your padawan braid.« He nodded towards the long, thin blond braid hanging down from Zett's right temple that indicated his status as an apprentice. »I didn't know the Jedi allowed that.«

They didn't. It was just that there weren't enough Jedi left to supervise the hundreds of padawans and younglings. Since he had already been out in the field, first to help Master Unill investigate cases all over the galaxy, then to fight by his side against the separatist battle droids, they left him pretty much to his own devices now. As long as he turned up most of the time for Master Drallig's training, nobody cared where he went in the many hours in between.

»I prefer it that way.«

»Commander.« The word came out forced, as if the sergeant had a problem accepting a boy as his superior officer, Jedi or not. »I have many useful contacts in the undercity. Eventually I will figure it out. But it takes time. Time the next victim of this monster doesn't have. You have powers that could shorten this investigation considerably. But, pardon my candor, you do not strike me as experienced or connected enough to be able to make the most of those powers down here.«

The sergeant stared straight at him. Zett could smell the clone's sour sweat from under the heavy plasteel armor. His lips were chapped, his cheeks hollow and there were shadows under his mismatched eyes. But in the darkness those eyes, both the brown and the blue one, still glittered with anger.

Damn, Zett thought.

»I really work better alone...«

»So do I. But if I could find the perp on my own, or if you could simply sniff him out the way you sniffed out this body,« the sergeant nudged the dead Rodian with his boot, »we wouldn't still be standing here, would we? And he wouldn't be lying there. Dead.«

By the moons of Alderaan, couldn't he at least dislike the man? Couldn't he at least be repulsed by his scar, and his constant grin, and those two oh so different eyes?

»Fine.« Zett hated how petulant and childish he sounded. »Let's do it together then. How do you propose we begin?«

»First thing, you put your cloak back on, sir. No need to announce you're a Jedi.« The sergeant handed Zett the cloak he had discarded earlier and jammed his own helmet under his armored arm. »Then we have a medic take care of your shoulder.« The sergeant's voice brooked no argument. Zett had to smile.

»Have it your way, Cee Tee Ten Ten.«

* * *

Zett had expected that the sergeant would take him to the nearest army barracks or a Coruscant Security Forces station house, or maybe one of the free clinics operated by various charities. The clone helped him up onto the lowest street level and ushered him to the next civilian elevator that connected the many layers of the undercity. But then he pushed a button just a few stops from the very bottom where they had gotten on.

»Where are we going?« Zett asked when the squeaking transparisteel doors – covered in so much graffiti as to make it practically opaque – closed.

»Clydno's Bar and Girl.«

»You mean Bar and Grill?«

»Girl. Though it really should be Boys and Girls.«

»And the medic afterwards...?

»Down here things are not always what they seem. You will have to trust me.«

The sergeant stepped outside. The street was busy. Long limbed Muuns walked through the misty acid rain, whispering quietly with fastidious, scaly Gossams. Blank-eyed Neimoidians with stress-mottled skin hurried by, hiding under hooded cloaks. And overhead insectile Geonosians droned on transparent wings through the smog.

»Sergeant...?« Zett looked around and felt for his lightsaber hilt at his belt. It's cool, metallic weight comforted him.

»It's not far, sir. Though perhaps once we are there, I better not address you by rank. With your permission. Clone calling a boy like you sir or commander, as I said, might not be wise to announce the presence of a Jedi.«

Zett had to agree. »Permission granted.«

»Fox.« the sergeant said. Zett turned to him questioning. »That's what my friends here call me.«

»You have friends in this place?« Zett looked around with wide eyes. »They are all... they are all separatists. And you are a...?«

»Yes, I am a clone trooper in the Grand Army of the Republic. Bred to kill the enemies of the Republic, without question or hesitation.« Was that just brutal honesty behind the matter-of-fact tone, or was it bitter sarcasm? Zett couldn't be sure. Sergeant Fox was the strangest clone he had ever met.

»These people aren't separatists, lad. No more than your average cook or servant or construction droid overseer on the higher levels is a loyalist.« Fox stepped out of the way of a droid rickshaw transporting a kissing Sullustan couple. »These people are just that. People. Good and bad.«

Zett watched two red-skinned Niktu, one of them a teenage girl, the other still a child, covered in heavy, padded cloaks and huddle against each other, sitting on the curb. The child was holding a panhandling bowl made from the banged up top of an astrodroid. He wondered what their story was, how they had ended up here so far from their native Hutt space, and what their fates would be. Probably more war orphans.

A few dozen yards down the alley from the two beggars Fox opened a mirrored door. Heavy music pounded the air inside. An unobtrusive yellow neon sign above the door said ›Clydno's Bar and Girl‹.

The bar was packed. High on many walls holoscreens displayed various sports reports, from pod races and grav ball matches to droid fights and more illegal gladiatorial events. On several platforms floating on repulsor lifts and in cages suspended from the ceiling by crackling power couplings naked figures danced: Some were human, others Twi'lek and Togruta, some were female, others male. All of them, Zett had to admit, were extremely attractive, and made him feel very uncomfortable.

The Patrons laughed and shouted. Many smoked death sticks. As Fox and Zett made their way through the crowd, a two-headed Yuvernian nudged Zett against his wounded shoulder. Zett hissed.

»Hey. Hey, you. Boy. Want some Ryll? Best in the sector. Clea-ea-ean.« He stretched the last word until it sounded as if it had much more than one syllable.

Zett looked to Fox, but the clone was already several meters ahead of him.

»No, thank you,« Zett said, feeling stupid. He'd been in the undercity so often in the past months, but all he had done was slink around in dark, in empty corners, afraid to actually meet someone. He had watched, but never participated. Even now his only instinct was to pull out his saber and arrest this dealer.

Troubled he hurried after Fox.

When he caught up, Fox was talking to the dancer in one of the cages. It was a young, male Togruta. His naked body was painted gold, covering his natural dark and light stripes. He was kneeling at the bottom of the cage, his face pressed to the bars, and listened to the clone.

»That's him.« Fox said and nodded towards Zett. »Friend of entrepreneur, sometimes procures rare items for me. Overzealous guard dog mistook his intentions. Patched him up some, but Tarja could be of help here.«

The boy nodded, stood up and waved his hand in front of a camera installed in the ceiling of the cage. After a minute, the a trap door in the floor of the cage unlocked with a loud clunk and slid open. Gracefully the boy jumped out. His body was glistening with sweat and the golden body paint, and the soles of his feet were black with dirt from the cage's floor. Zett wondered how long he had been dancing in there.

»Tarja is an excellent medic. You can trust her. Mool will take you to her.«

»And you?«

»I'll pursue other avenues.« Fox said. »You'll find me at the sabacc tables.«

Mool, the dancing boy, embraced Fox. »Good to see you.«

Fox hugged him back and patted his short, rounded horns. Mool smiled up at him and went to the tips of his toes. Fox ran his gloved hands down the boy's stubby posterior headtail. Mool moaned and opened his lips, and Fox bent down and pressed his chaffed lips softly on the boy's golden ones.

Zett watched Fox's hand glide down Mool's slender back and cup his firm bottom, as the kiss lasted. Zett knew that a lot of Galactic cultures viewed sexual attraction between members of the same gender, or members of different species, as common. Others saw either as abominable.

Mandalorians – the society most clones used as a template to model their own values on – considered gender as immaterial to the forming of emotional bonds or families. Of course, Mandalorians were normally also very xenophobic.

Zett knew he was clinging to these anthropological musings to avoid asking himself who he would rather be right now. Fox, kissing this beautiful golden Togruta – or Mool, being so passionately embraced by the strong, strange clone.

Finally Fox broke the kiss and gave Mool a sharp slap to the rump. Mool grinned up at him, then smiled at Zett.

»Follow me.«

Mool took Zett by the hand and led him through the crowd.

»Are you Fox's boy?« he asked conversationally as they made their way past dancers, gamblers, and drinkers.

»No!« Zett said. »I just...« I just what, he wondered. What is it I am doing here? »I just work with him.«

»Oh.« Mool sounded almost disappointed. »I thought you might be. I really want him to be happy. He helped me so much.«

»He helped you?« Zett sounded more skeptical than he had intended.

»Uh-huh.« Mool nodded eagerly. »His platoon stopped a C.I.S. transport to Duroon. Fox got me out and sold me to Clydno's.«

Zett stopped. He gripped Mool's hand tight enough to make the young Togruta wince. »He sold you?!«

»Hey, better than starving in a refugee camp. Have you been to them?« Mool glared at him, obviously regretting he told Zett anything. »And sure beats getting worked to death in the factories of Duroon!«

The crowd pressed in on them from all sides. Zett was buffeted and pushed.

»Come on. I have to bring you to Tarja and beg her to heal your wound.« Mool's tone of voice left no doubt, that for all he cared Zett could go and let a bantha piss on it.

Quietly but raging with questions, Zett followed.

Mool stopped at the largest and best illuminated of the repulsor lift platforms. A beautiful, heavily tattooed woman was dancing languidly on it.

Mool waited patiently until he caught her eyes and then signaled her that he need to say something. The woman looked to a nearby alcove and nodded to a group of lightly dressed boys and girls there. One of the girls, a pale green Twi'lek, slipped out of her gown and walked over. The woman and the girl exchanged places.

A disappointed murmur went through the room when the woman stepped down, but the Twi'lek girl did her best to appease the crowd.

»What is it, Mool?«

»This boy was wounded by a dog. Will you look at him?«

The woman looked at Zett. Her eyes spoke of a fierce intelligence. When seen up close, the tattoos covering most of her body turned out to be either depictions of battles or of love making. They also served to cover up many, many scars on the woman's arms, chest, torso, even face and legs.

»He looks good enough to make it to one of the charities.«

»Please, mistress. Fox brought him in. He asked me to make sure the boy is treated.«

The woman sighed. »I will have a look. Find a replacement for your cage and then go rest for a while. You did enough for now.« And to Zett: »Come with me.«

She led Zett through the alcove where the other dancers rested. She grabbed the simple robe the Twi'lek girl had dropped on a chair and put it on. She then went through a door in the back, and down a quiet, narrow corridor to a small room.

The room was furnished quite efficiently with cupboards, a cot, a workspace, and even a simple, battered-looking medical droid. The way every bit of space in the room was used reminded Zett of the inside of a starship.

»Sit on the cot. Take off your cloak and tunic.«

Zett did as he was told. Tarja cleaned her hands off with a sterile cloth and applied a strong sanitizer.

»Let's have a look.« She removed the field bandages and examined the wound.

»One deep scan, Cee-Aye,« he told the droid.

»Are you a doctor?« Zett asked.

»Aye. Bona fide medic. Trained by the Corellian navy.«

The droid waved two scanner-rods across Zett's back and burped out a short stream of binary data. Tarja studied a small screen.

»How did you end up here?« Zett asked.

»Oh, you know.« She smiled noncommittally. »Life takes you strange places.«

Ain't that the truth, Zett thought. Reluctantly he decided to try investigating more like Sergeant Fox.

»Or death...«

»Two strips of artificial supraspinatus, Cee-Aye.« Tarja applied more bacta and the flashgrafts to his shoulder. »What do you mean ›or death‹?«

»Just that some of my friends were killed recently.«

»I'm sorry to hear that. Life in the undercity can be cheap and short.«

Zett sought for the right words: »They... were hollowed out... by something.«

Hesitation betrayed her knowledge. Carefully Zett felt for her mind through the force. There was confusion, and worry, but no complicity. He suppressed a sigh of relief and pushed very gently.

»Have you ever heard something like that before?«

Tarja covered his shoulder with a fresh woundpack and bandages.

»There. Not exactly good as new yet, but if you keep it calm for a few days, is should be.« She disinfected her hands again. »And yes. I have heard of the Coruscant Reaper. For months, ever since that insurrection business last year, I think.«

Zett looked up startled. Of course every padawan knew the story, whether he had been there or not. One of separatist leader Count Dooku's dark disciples had lead a squadron of lightsaber-proof Super Battledroids against the Jedi Temple and tried to blow up the archives. But surely there could be no connection to these gruesome, pointless killings.

He tried to sound angry, like a stupid young kid out for vengeance for his dead friends: »Do you know who is behind this?«

»Only the rumors. A medical droid gone rogue. Or a secret experiment by the Army. Also heard it could be a Ghoul plague, that turns folks into dead-alive cannibals.« She scoffed. »My guess is, it's a Cymexi Thogua. That's a parasite from the swamps of Brywallac VI. They do that, eat hollows into their victims and deposit their eggs inside.«

Zett was dubious. He hadn't seen any eggs. And the wounds had seemed to be cut by a blade, not chewed by some bug or worm. But then he remembered the razor sharp teeth of the akk dog, their almost industrial perfection and wondered what other natural weapons predators out there might have.

»And now take off the rest of your clothes and let me get your something less conspicuous, kid.« She tugged at his padawan braid and winked. »Jedi are not much liked down here.«

* * *

Fox was laughing raucously at something the Trandoshan opposite him had said when Zett rejoined him. Mool was sitting on Fox's lap, one golden arm around Fox's neck. He wore a flimsy silvery tunic now that barely reached his crossed legs. With his free hand he was playing coyly with one of his headtails.

Fox was holding sabacc cards in one hand and cupping Mool's shoulder in the other. When Zett walked up, he looked up and whistled.

»You cut a fine figure like that, lad.«

Tarja had given Zett snug bodyglove of gunmetal gray armorsilk, a black, fur-lined Corellian pilot's jacket with red stripes on the upper arms, and a pair of tall, buckled boots. »None of it is particularly clean, kid, but it'll be a lot safer to wear,« she had advised. The jacket smelled of scorched oil, plastics, and something musty, animalistic, but it hid the lightsaber hilt he had clipped to the harness he wore strapped over the bodyglove.

Zett hated the way Fox's remark made him blush, and remembering what Mool had told him, he hid behind a scowl.

The Trandoshan playing against Fox slapped Zett's back. »Have some Stööhb, pal...« He pushed a bottle of dark, muddy brew towards Zett. »...while I clean out your mate's pockets.«

Fox nodded towards Zett. »Ga'acht here tells me that a friend of his actually met the Undercity Ripper and survived. Turns out Trandoshans can detach and regenerate limbs at will. Did you know that?«

»Hurts like hell, I tell you,« Ga'acht interrupted. »And takes pretty much forever. But...« He grinned, showing off his rows of serrated, pointed teeth. »...we can!« He snickered to himself and played a hand of cards. Fox frowned and responded by laying down several of his own cards.

»It seems the Ripper didn't know that. That grabbing a Trandoshan by the arm doesn't actually restrain him.«

»So, who is it?« Zett asked and took a sip from the bottle. The Stööhb tasted as pungent as it looked, but it relaxed him. »The Ripper,« he added. »Not a Cymexi Thogi-something from Brywallac, I guess?«

»Not frakking likely,« Ga'acht said, picking up the coins from the table. »It was a half dead Elom. You know, big, hulking, hairy buggers. Ugly, tusked face, claws.« He mimed a shambling monster by lifting his arms and curling his own clawed fingers. To further illustrate his point he growled.

»The beast smelled putrid. It had an eye missing, the cave black and foul, with maggots wriggling in it. And it moved all funny, jerking, and stiff. Like it was on a military parade.«

»An Elom?« Zett frowned. »Eloms are peaceful...«

»Hah, shows what you know, pal,« Ga'acht said. »Not the ones that get sold to the Black Sun young and are raised offworld. It messes with them. Makes them crazy fighters.«

Zett thought about it. »Or it's some kind of infection. The putrid smell...«

»Don't Eloms usually smell pretty rank?« Fox asked.

»But there's also the missing eye,« Zett said, »the open, suppurating, infected wound, the stiff movements...«

»What are you?« Ga'acht asked. »Some junior Jedi sleuth? What do you care? Just stay where there are many people and lights and you'll be safe, pal. Richer pickings for your fingers anyway.« Again he slapped Zett's back and laughed before getting up. »Not this one here, though. Picked him dry for you. Well, except for what he has between his legs.«

»Fate was against me tonight,« Fox grumbled.

Ga'acht laughed. »There is no fate but what we make, Fox, old friend.«

He and Fox bumped fists and the Trandoshan staggered away through the crowd towards the bar.

Zett glared at Fox and Mool who was stretching himself on Zett's lap like a lazy felinx. Zett couldn't tell whether it was the scar or whether Fox was grinning, but something in his gaze made him uncomfortable.

»What do you make of that story?« Fox asked.

»I don't know,« Zett said. »Tarja mentioned a rumor about some Ghoul plague that turned its victims into cannibals. But the wounds we saw weren't caused by claws or teeth. And remember the lack of blood? What raving, plague-consumed ghoul would stop to take out a laser-scalpel?«

»Fox, my sweet?« Mool purred and leaned in to give the clone a kiss right onto his scar. »I have to go back, earn my keep.«

Fox smiled at him. He grabbed one of Mool's short horns and shook his head playfully. »You be good. I'll be by again soon.«

Mool uncoiled himself and slid from Fox's lap. Fox got up himself and stepped out of the alcove he'd been sitting in.

»Listen,« he said to Zett. »I have one more inquiry to make. Finish your Stööhb and wait for me by the exit, there's a good lad.«

He handed Zett his helmet. »Watch that for me, will you?«

Fox squeezed himself into the crowd. Zett and Mool watched him go, then looked at each other.

»No need to be jealous,« Mool said suddenly and sighed. »Fox would never have me.«

Zett didn't even want to grace the notion he could be jealous with an answer, but he couldn't help himself. He had to ask: »Why not?«

They walked through the club to Mool's dancing cage.

»You know, he got me out of that burning ship, had Tarja patch me up, got me this job. He thinks of me as a child. He's responsible for me. Love would complicate things.« Mool's face clearly said that he wished it was differently.

Underneath his cage he took Zett's free hand. »He likes you. A lot.«

Zett almost pulled his hand away. Instead he stared at it, dirty pink in Mool's golden, painted one. »How do you know that?«

»The way he looks at you. The way he talks about you. Hell, he asked Tarja for a favor on your behalf.« Mool laughed. »And I was sitting on his lap, remember? When you came back in your new adventure outfit.«

The trap door unlocked again and slid open. The dancing girl that had been in the cage slid out and landed next to them.

The Togruta boy winked at Zett. »I gotta go back up. You take care of yourself. And of Fox. He's a good man.«

* * *

Outside the Clydno's the smog had become denser. It burned in Zett's throat. Natural light never reached these levels of the Galactic City, but even the thousands of advertisements, holoscreens, arc lights, and neon signs seemed dimmer, as if night had fallen on the undercity.

The Niktu beggar girls had left their corner. Zett stood in the fine drizzle and allowed the sour rain to collect on his face and tun run down his neck under the jacket and bodyglove.

He tried to feel the web of the force around him, connecting him to the passersby, to the crowd inside, to the rats scurrying in the drains, the fleas in the jacket's fur lining, the permacrete ground and walls, the very rain and air flowing past. Instead he kept seeing Fox's black gloves, the dirty white plasteel covering the back of his hand. The way they contrasted with Mool's golden skin as Fox caressed his horns. His headtails. Cupped his bottom.

»So, what have we learned?« The sergeant stepped outside next to him.

Zett glared at him: »That you are a frakking slaver!«

He pushed the helmet back at the sergeant, practically punched him with it. The sergeant stared at him, open mouthed. »What, sir?«

»You sold that Togruta boy to the club's owners!«

»Whoa!« The sergeant lifted the helmet almost like barrier between himself and the angry padawan. »When you mean I took money in exchange for his freedom, I did nothing of the sort!«

»Oh? What else then? Were you paid in favors?« Zett made the last word sound as dirty as could.

»Hey! The blazing club is under the protection of the Black Sun, like almost everything here. And why? Because the Jedi aren't doing their blazing job. Mool was burned almost over his entire body after we took the slave ship. Why do you think he wears that body paint?«

Zett was confused. The Black Sun was the largest criminal syndicate in the Galaxy. It controlled much of the underworld on Coruscant. »So what? You still sold him.«

»Yes, you little...« The sergeant bit down on the word and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath. »Tarja saved Mool. Tarja Clydno! Buying that much skin on the black market cost a lot of money. I sold her Mool, and then gave her the money for his skin. That way he is safe.«

Zett frowned. »What do you mean?«

»As long as he is an indentured dancer at Clydno's, and Clydno's is under the protection of the Black Sun, nobody will touch him, hurt him, sell him, or expose him to any of the other horrible fates that a kid like him without any means or connections would face down here.« The sergeant slammed the helmet over his head. His voice turned cold and metallic again. »Nobody else would take care of him. He'd been sent to a camp. By now he'd be a spice-hooked criminal, a whore, or dead. Sir!«

Zett thought about it. Grudgingly he had to admit that the sergeant and Tarja Clydno probably had chosen the best possible path for Mool.

»I am sorry. I judged quickly, impatient and out of ignorance. That was not worthy of a Jedi.«

A crackling sound came from the sergeant's helmet. Zett assumed it was a sarcastic laugh.

»Please,« he said. »Accept my apology.«

The sergeant looked at him with the blank faceshield of his clone trooper uniform. Then he gave a curt nod. »It's okay, sir. You couldn't know.«

»Did you find out anything else?«

»I did. There's a black weapons market, two levels up. Been meaning to scout it out anyway. There's been a string of break-ins and thefts of C.S.F. weapons recently. Not enough to call the big boys yet, but something I should follow up on. The market is a place where a lot of dodgy characters gather. We might turn something up.«

»Oh, dodgy characters? That'll be quite a change from the club.«

The sergeant started walking back to the public elevator. »Clydno's isn't dodgy. It's charming.«

»So, how do you know Tarja Clydno?« Zett asked.

»We served together. One of my first missions. Corellian Sector. She patched me up and some of my brothers.«

»How did she end up running a Black Sun club on Coruscant?«

The sergeant laughed in his helmet. »Some are better suited to serve than others. She disagreed with an officer one time too often. Decided to follow her heart instead of reason. After her discharge she got into trouble with the law on Corellia. One thing led to another.«

Why do I get the impression that one of those things was you, Zett wondered. »You going to join her one day?«

The sergeant turned his head, studied Zett's expression. »No, sir. I may be a bad batcher, but I'm an Army man through and through.«

Bad batcher? That was a derogatory term for clones whose genetic development had fallen short of the expected outcome. It explained the sergeant's pointy ears and the bicolored eyes. It also made Zett weary. So far he only had the clone's word and the fact that he wore a sergeant's battle armor to prove that really worked for the Army.

Zett carefully opened his senses again, searched his feelings. Was there deception in the clone? Ill intent?

Zett's fingers touched the sergeant's glove. Physical contact helped. The sergeant almost flinched and pulled his hand away quickly.

There was something guarded about the clone's heart. Maybe just the scars of past ribbings. »Ears like a fox...« That was an old memory. A superior officer named Appo. Laughter from brothers. The awareness he would never fit in. Zett knew that feeling.

No, there was no malice. If anything, there was protectiveness. So why the guile? The shadow of deceit? And what was that thought Fox had just pushed away. Something about beauty, and time.

»Sir?«

»It's Zett, Fox. Please. Call me Zett.«

»As you wish... Zett.«

»I just thought about what Ga'acht said. The stiff movements? Almost mechanical? What does that remind you of?«

Fox stopped and thought.

»Droids. What he described, it moved like battle droids.«

»Yes. Think about it. Eloms are...«

»...big, with a sagging hide and very hairy,« Fox interrupted. »Ideal...«

»...to cover a droid with as camouflage.« Zett finished the sentence.

They looked at each other.

»It could be a separatist plot after all.«

»Tarja said it started after Dooku's attack on the Temple, a year ago. Maybe he left a squad of droids behind. Costumed as Eloms.«

Fox shook his head. »But why would they go and slaughter random people in the undercity?«

»I don't know,« Zett admitted, »but it's no worse a theory than most.«

Suddenly a scream echoed through the darkness ahead of them.

»What was that?« Fox unhooked his blaster. Zett already had his lightsaber shaft in both hands. He felt for the force.

»There!« Ahead an opening in the wall lead to a narrow thoroughfare. They ran towards it. Something flashed in the darkness. A blade?

»Halt!« Fox shouted, but whoever was there turned and fled.

Zett ignited the lightsaber and followed. Between them, by the side of the thoroughfare a small, reddish body in a heavy cloak. The little Niktu beggar girl. Ahead another scream. The older girl? Zett ran faster.

The fugitive turned a corner. Zett was almost upon him. In the blue light of the saber he saw that the escaping creature was indeed a droid – one with repulsor pads instead of legs. It wasn't running, but flying. Hovering in the air... above a sudden and unexpected chasm. There was no way for Zett to stop himself from stumbling across the ledge.

The droid emitted the screaming sound again. A recording?

With a flick of his finger Zett extinguished the blade in free fall. He sensed for the ground. It was coming up too fast! He searched for some surface he could work with.

There! A strut spanning the chasm. He touched it with one foot, pushed off at an angle to disperse the kinetic energy. Now he was falling headfirst into a wall. Zett struck the wall with his back. Agony flared through his wounded shoulder. He pushed himself into a tumble, slowed down enough that he could land with both feet on a narrow ledge without breaking a bone or tearing a tendon.

He looked around. The little droid had disappeared. There was darkness below and above him. And no sign of Sergeant Fox.

»Frack!« Zett teetered on the ledge. He peered up. He couldn't see anything. Where was the opening he had jumped down from? Could he get back up there? Should he just jump into the darkness, hope he would come out somewhere below and find his way back up from there?

What would Master Unill do?

»He would get himself killed and leave me alone. That is what he would do.« Just like his parents. And probably like Fox...

Zett closed his eyes and focused on his breathing.

»There is no pain. There is only the force.«

It didn't help. The pain and fear were still there, clouding his mind.

He tried again: »The is no emotion. There is peace.«

There was no peace. He tried to feel for the clone. For Fox. But all he got was pain and confusion, fear, and the stink of death.

»There is no ignorance. There is knowledge.«

He put the lightsaber away. He tried to push all thoughts of Fox away.

»There is no passion, there is serenity.«

Something was happening. Something was arriving. The right moment.

»There is no chaos. There is harmony.«

Fox might be dying right now, but there was nothing Zett could do about it. He had to accept it.

»There is no death. There is only the force!«

Zett leapt into the darkness.

Out of the mist, the drizzle and darkness, like an Aiwha rising out of the ocean depth, a supply container rushed upwards on repulsor lifts. Zett landed on it in a crouch. The droid piloting the container emitted a stream of surprised binary. Then they sped past the opening Zett had come from. He propelled himself forward, dived, and rolled over the damp, oily permacrete floor of the thoroughfare. When he came up he was ready.

The dead body in the alley was indeed the little Niktu girl. Another nameless orphan. She, too, had been sliced open and emptied out. There was no sign of her innards. Not even of blood. The droid hadn't carried them, either...

That meant...

The scream, a recording. Fake. The flash of the blade, the way it had hovered above the chasm. It had been a trap.

And the droid had been inside the dead girl.

The empty bodies were discarded skin-suits for the droid!

»Dying suns of the Tannhauser Gate! What a fool I have been!«

He picked up the cloak. It was made of a heavy, coarse fabric. He clenched it in his fist. Who had worn it? Who was it connected to? He tried to feel some connection, but there was only the dead child.

Zett hurried back to where he had last seen Fox. The mud and gravel was disturbed. Two blaster scorches on the wall.

And there, in one corner, was Fox's helmet.

Zett knelt down, picked it up. Put it on.

Instead of the owner of the cloak he now tried to find the owner of the helmet. Maybe a droid had no connection to the force, or to a garment, even one made of flesh. But this was Sergeant Fox, bad-batcher, lone scout and friend of the underworld. And this was his helmet. The only face that he truly shared with his brothers.

If Sergeant Fox was still alive, he would find him. He would rescue him.

* * *

The droid's lair was at the end of a sloping hill of trash, by the shore of a dark lake, deep under the Temple District. Warehouses had been dug next to and on top of each other. The lips of their loading docks jutted from the walls of the canyon haphazardly, like stacked brambles. Each cave a different size. Each of them abandoned now. Except one.

Between them several burst pipes spewed a flood of sewage down the uneven walls. The wastewater cascaded over ledges and lips of the warehouses, replenishing the stinking lake.

Zett didn't know which strange Galactic culture had created this warren. Whoever had done so, they must have done it centuries ago. Everything here was ancient, crumbling, rotting.

And in one of the caverns, far down at the oily, scummy surface of the lake, was Sergeant Fox. Fox, who was in terrible agony – screaming agony that had called out to Zett through the force across the undercity, but that was rolling across the waters in his voice here.

In agony but alive.

Zett dropped the helmet into the trash at his feet, as he hurried down the slope to the edge of the water. Noxious bubbles rose to its sluggish surface. The stench was unbelievable. It burned in his eyes. And yet, things moved under that surface - ropy, ribbed bodies. Fish, maybe. Or tentacles. Or serpents.

He would rather not find out.

Carefully he stepped onto a ledge and walked along the canyon wall, past several gaping mouths of warehouses. As he neared the cave he was walking to, the ledge got lower and lower, until finally, it dipped under water.

Zett placed one boot into the dark water. The ledge here was slick with algae and silt. Carefully he inched onwards.

Fox screamed again.

Zett crept closer, lightsaber hilt in his hands. The ledge went deeper. The viscous water of the lake reached his knees, flowed into his boots, made them heavy.

Fox screamed again and again, in agony. But there were also words. The man was already hoarse from screaming, but he kept shouting something.

»A trap! It's a trap. Zett, it's a trap!«

Zett had suspected as much. But what was his choice? Abandon Fox? Wait for the murderer to open him up and wear him like a suit?

The thought of Sergeant Fox's fine body all emptied and slack like an empty sack made Zett want to heave.

He reached the entrance and peered into the gloom.

Fox, stripped of his armor and clothes, was hanging off two durasteel beams welded into a crude x-shaped cross. Heavy bolts had been driven through his arms and legs into the beams. Blood was running down his limbs from those wounds. But to Zett's relief he had not been cut open.

Standing in a circle around him, up to their thighs in the scummy water, were six creatures: The teenage Niktu, a fat human, two leonine Bothans with matted fur, a gaunt Twi'lek, bulging bizarrely under his chest, where too large a droid had been stuffed into the tight a body, and the hulking shape of the rotting Elom. Hovering next to Fox on its repulsor pads was the little droid. It was holding one arm with two metallic prongs to the clone's stomach. Blue spark flew from the prongs when it touched Fox's skin, and Fox jerked and screamed again.

Zett slipped out of the Pilot's jacket and kicked off the water-logged boots. The ground was uneven and slimy under his feet. Wearing only the armored bodyglove he went to his knees, immersing himself to his shoulders in the sewage. He took a deep breath and focused on the force. On the dead things worn by droids, on the water and the cave. And then he pushed off, head under water.

A few waves crossed the surface. The six camouflaged droids scanned the surroundings, but the water was too muddy and filled with organic residue for their sensors to be able to make out much.

»Target approaching« one of them bleeped from inside a chest cavity.

A blue flame appeared under water in their midst. The water parted and Zett leapt up, in a semicircle more liquid than the water he emerged from. The blade flashed and hummed. Steam sizzled off the plasma field.

Five bodies split across the torso. Sparks showered in all directions as the droids inside came apart. Before the upper bodies could fall into the lake, on his way down, Zett split the last, the Niktu, from shoulder to crotch.

He whirled around, but before his blade could slice into the hovering droid, he sensed something behind him.

Just in time his blade deflected two blaster bolts. The first hit the ceiling. The other hit the little droid. It burst apart in an explosion of shrapnel. Fox bellowed as several pieces of the machine struck his body. The burning wreck fell into the water, where it hissed and was extinguished.

The hulking figure of a B3 Super Battledroid had risen out of the depth of the lake behind Zett, where it had hidden. It was huge, more than twice the height and four times the volume of the young padawan. Its armor was jet black and sparkled strangely in the light of the lightsaber and of the fire the two jets spewed from its feet.

The Battledroid must have been severely damaged a while back. It was missing one of its original arms and the plating on its chest and hip. But someone – Zett suspected the droid itself – had since repaired it with pieces of many other machines and a multitude of weapons.

Some of it had come from other battledroids. Some from civilian droids it must have busted up for parts here on Coruscant. There were partial shield generators, extra arms, tanks, pipes and other things Zett could not identify. And welded onto its right chest, almost like a baby cradled to a bosom, was a legless medroid, giving the monster a second head and even more limbs.

The Battledroid was pointing one heavy shoulder-mounted blaster rifle at Zett. But as Zett stood there, wet and filthy, hip deep in the lake, saber ready, the droid flipped the rifle back. Instead it lifted one of its extra arms. It ended in a muzzle made of oxidized metal and connected via a ribbed durasteel tube to a tank on its back.

A little flame danced in the mouth of the muzzle.

»You cannot deflect this, Jedi,« the Battledroid snarled in a deep robotic voice. The muzzle sputtered and hissed. Then a huge chemical flame roared across the surface of the lake. Zett had to take a sloshing step backwards.

»Maybe you can evade it. But you cannot rescue your clone friend.«

Zett tried to asses the overall situation. The droid was right. He couldn't deflect the flame with his saber the way he could deflect blaster bolts. He might be able to dive aside. Maybe he could even reach and destroy the droid. But not in time to save Fox. Fox would burn and die. There was nothing he could do to prevent that.

Nothing, except...

Zett straightened up. He extinguished the blade. And bowed his head.

»What do you want?«

»I am Cee Bee Three Thirteen Niner of the Confederacy of Independent Systems. You are my prisoner. You will surrender. Drop your weapon and kneel.«

»No...« Fox groaned behind him. »Don't! It will kill us both! I am just a clone. Sacrifice me. Attack!«

Zett looked at Cee Bee Three Thirteen Niner, hovering on hissing jets over the black lake. He looked over his shoulder at the clone sergeant.

»There is no fear,« he said. »There is no pain.«

He threw his saber hilt into the water, placed his hands onto his head and knelt.

»There is no death.

There is only the force.«

* * *

»Why did you come back?« Fox asked. He was lying on the floor of an almost lightless cell the droid had put them both in after Zett's surrender. His head rested on Zett's lap.

»You haven't worked with many Jedi, have you?« Zett asked. He was sitting next to Fox on the damp floor, leaning against the wall, and caressing the wounded clone's head.

Fox coughed. He was cradling his mutilated hands. »Told you, I work mostly alone.«

Zett had to smile. »Because you're different?«

Even now Fox hesitated, but he was too exhausted to put up a fight. »Yes. It is easier to be useful where you don't feel like a failure.«

There was a faint glimmer from bioluminescent algae on the walls and floor, barely enough for the two prisoners to be able to see each other.

»I know what you mean.«

»You're not useless.« Fox protested. » You're a Jedi!«

»A Padawan. Without a Master.« Zett caressed his bald head again.

»Why did your Master chose you? Before his death.«

»Master Unill heard of me when I saw my parent's death.« Zett closed his eyes. »I was seven. I hadn't seen them in years, barely remembered them. They were half the Galaxy away at the time.«

»Why did he care?«

Zett shook his head to come back to reality. »I don't know. He was investigating the Black Sun on Mon Gazza, my birth world, when he learned of their deaths. They had been killed by the syndicate.«

»Did he use you to find the criminals?«

Zett nodded. »Yeah. I was useful then. I helped him find the murderers and stop them.«

»How? How could you be useful.«

»The force...«

»Every Jedi can use the force. Many Jedi possess farsight. But only you could find those murderers. Not Master Unill. Not Master Windu or Master Yoda? You. A seven year old youngling. How?«

»They were my parents.«

Fox coughed. »So, what, it's a blood thing? You said you could barely remember them.«

»I remembered the pain of being taken from them.«

Fox turned his head. His mismatched eyes took in Zett's sullen face. Zett looked back. His dirty fingers toyed with Fox's strange, pointy ears. Pain. That was the red thread running through all of his life. Pain had shown him his parents' death. Pain had shown him where Fox had been taken.

»Fox. That was for the ears?«

Fox closed his eyes, nodded, then shook his head. »At first, yes. Later... I made a couple of good calls on gut instinct. Got through some tough moments. They said I was a survivor. Like a fox.«

»Think you can find a way out of here?«

Fox closed his eyes and pressed his face closer to Zett. Zett shivered and ran his fingers over Fox's bald head again.

»I don't think so. But then I didn't think so the other times.«

For a while they were silent. Zett looked at his pale fingers on Fox's darker skin. It reminded him of the way he had held Mool's hand earlier.

»Fox...« he began. He could feel Fox listen.

»Mool said...« Zett struggled with the words. »You would never, you know. Desire. Him?«

Fox chuckled. »He said that?« He kissed Zett's stomach through the wet bodyglove. »I don't know about desire. But I guess he is right. I wouldn't want to compromise my friendship to him.«

Zett leaned his head against the wet wall and closed his eyes again. »You know that Jedi are supposed to feel no attachment to other people?«

»Yeah.« Fox coughed again. »How is that working out for you?«

Not, Zett thought. It's not working out at all.

In the silence they heard the heavy, clanking steps of their captor. The door opened and Cee Bee Three Thirteen Niner clomped in. It crossed the floor, extended one of its many arms, grabbed Zett by the wrist, and pulled him into the air.

Zett struggled with himself not to try to escape. He could have evaded the droid's grip, dash past him, maybe find his lightsaber. But it would mean abandoning Fox to the monster.

Maybe he should try it anyway.

Maybe. But he knew he couldn't.

The Battledroid extended three more arms, one of which belonged to the merged medroid. Together they held Zett by each limb, stretched out like an Alderaanian flying squirrel.

»You're a Cortosis Battledroid.« Zett said. He had to try to slow the droid down somehow. Stall it. »You were part of Dooku's insurrection force last year. You tried to destroy the Jedi Temple.«

»Only the Archive,« the droid said.

»Your mission failed. What are you doing down here, cutting up vagrants? Many of them are from separatist worlds, stranded here by the war.«

»Sacrifices have to be made. The mission has not failed. I am still here.«

Zett gasped when the droid pulled his limbs further apart. »You are going to destroy the Jedi Archive all on your own? How are you going to accomplish that? Why did you wait for a year?«

»Cannot enter target area without assistance from within. Needed time to prepare, gather weapons...«

»The break-ins. Droid parts. Chemicals. Weapons. That was you,« Fox gasped.

»That is correct. I have sufficient small arms and chemical and biological weapons now to have a higher than 51% chance of success in my mission.«

»You still won't get inside. The Temple is heavily defended. You tried before, didn't you? There have been reports of entry attempts. You will fail again.«

»No failure. Gathered intelligence. Acquired necessary skills. You will help me get inside.«

»I will not!« Zett struggled angrily in the droid's grip. »It doesn't matter how much you torture me or the sergeant. I will never betray the Jedi!«

»Your cooperation is not required. Only your flesh.«

Suddenly the medroid came alive. Its photoreceptors began to glow. Its various arms quivered and moved. It popped out a medical buzzsaw.

»Zero Emm Bee will connect to your vital systems and keep your outer shell functional. I will assemble a new droid to fit into your diminutive shell and control your motor functions through your brainstem. Your shell will be piloted into the Temple. There the droid inside you will merge with the security system. Sewage has the least complex security. Once disabled I will ascend through the pipes from here, and enter.

Several pincers, laser-scalpels, stim-injectors, and other emergency surgery tools activated all over the medroid's body, ready to keep Zett's ›outer shell‹ alive once the cutting started.

»How did you know I was a Jedi? That my shell could get you inside? And why did you attack Sergeant Fox, outside Clydno's?«

That was when Fox groaned on the floor.

»I was wrong, wasn't I?« He tried to prop up his torso on his elbows. »You were behind the droid thefts and vandalism. That's why I found so many of your discarded victims. But you didn't only steal. You put things back. Tarja's medroid. I gave it to her. It works for you. You had it spy on her.«

»I have many such agents in places across the lower levels. One of them was bound to report the location of a single, vulnerable Jedi.«

»But why didn't you grab me right away?«

Again it was Fox who answered. »We would have fought. It might have attracted the C.S.F., and you might have been damaged.« His voice was bitter. »It took me only as bait.«

»Loyalty, self-sacrifice, overconfidence. I am programmed with much useful intelligence on the Jedi. The mission will be a success.«

The little buzzsaw moved forward. Syringes and scalpels twitched in anticipation.

Zett was about to say something when the medroids head exploded.

The Battledroid turned around and held Zett like a shield between itself and the door, where two clone troopers stood, baster rifles at the ready.

»Saber!« Zett called and waved the hand the destroyed medroid had let go off.

One of the troopers tossed it towards him. The battle droid immediately snapped the shoulder-mounted blaster into position to execute Zett, but the padawan was faster. The blade ignited and the blaster fell from the glowing stump of its pintle.

»You didn't think I would come down here without calling backup, did you? I use the helmet's comm, told Fox's squad to home in on its signal. Left it outside your door.« Zett tried to slash the droid's arms, but when his blade touched the black metal of the arms, sparks showered in all directions. The blue blade flickered, almost extinguishing, and was deflected.

»Frack!« Zett whispered.

»My cortosis armor withstands your puny blade,« the droid cackled. »All my arms are salvaged from my fallen brothers. You cannot free yourself.«

Instead of trying to free himself, Zett slashed at the still form of the medroid where it had been bolted onto the damaged chest of the Battledroid. It sliced away cleanly, leaving glowing durasteel grates.

The droid extended the three arms still holding Zett far enough to keep its torso out of the lightsaber's reach while still keeping the padawan as a shield between itself and the clones. It then directed one of its weapon arms at the door.

»Flamer!« Zett shouted. »Withdraw!«

The clones ducked back behind the frame of the door, just in time before the roaring cone of the flamethrower bathed it in liquid death.

»Gun!« Fox shouted.

»Don't need you anymore,« the droid said and stepped back to direct the flamethrower's muzzle at the wounded man on the floor. At the same time it popped open several compartments on its right side to extend the tubes of grenade launchers.

A DC-15S Rifle slid across the floor. Fox rolled onto his back. He screamed through clenched teeth when he gripped the rifle with his mutilated hands and pointed it upwards.

Now the droid tried to keep Zett between itself and the door, to swing its flamethrower around at at Fox, and to aim the grenade launcher at the clones in the hall.

Zett knew Fox's single blaster rifle was no match for the droid's armor. The grenade would kill the clones outside. The droid would incinerate Fox, and escape with Zett. And without Fox alive, the Army and Jedi would still be clueless about the impeding attack on the Temple.

Zett couldn't cut off the droid's limbs.

Pain was the red thread of his life. The thing he had run from all these years, only to end here. Pain was the thing that had made him useful.

Zett screamed, swung his blade down, and sliced through his own right leg, just above the ankle where the droid's black claw was holding him.

Now that the droid was only holding his left foot and arm, Zett swung forward, still screaming, and rammed his blade deep into one of the grenade launcher tubes.

The droid swiveled its flamethrower around and pointed it at Zett's head. Zett stared into the pilot flame. His lightsaber hilt vibrated as the plasma blade began turning the droid's insides into molten slag - but too slow: The pilot flame began to flicker as fuel began to push out the air in the barrel.

Fox shot the tank on the droid's back. It exploded in a wild spray of chemically tinted fire. The pilot flame guttered and died. Finally the light saber blade ignited the grenades stored inside its body, and the entire C-B3 Battledroid was torn apart. Zett was thrown across the room. He crashed into the wet floor and slid across it.

Pieces of the shredded Battledroid rained down everywhere. Only its two legs still stood there a moment longer before they fell over.

* * *

»Does it hurt?« Fox ran his fingers over Zett's naked leg and the silver cybernetic foot. Pink and yellow light from the hotel's neon sign danced on the chrome of the prosthesis.

Zett smiled and curled up against the man's thighs. Fox kissed the cool metal. The bed sheets whispered when they moved. Zett leaned forward and Fox pulled him into an embrace. Goose bumps sprang up on Zett's arms.

»Are you sure this is okay?« Fox asked. His lips twitched. »I hear Jedi aren't supposed to feel attachment for anyone.«

Zett drew up his right leg and pressed the cybernetic foot against the clone's crotch. »Do you think I am in danger of becoming too attached to anything?«

»Stop that!« Fox had to laugh. »It's cold!«

»Hey, you know what Master Obi Wan says about the force?«

Fox toyed with Zett's padawan braid. »I do not. What does he say?«

»That it gives us life.« Zett pressed himself closer to Fox, slid one hand down between them. »It lets us grow.« He stroked the man's flesh. »It surrounds us...« His lips brushed Fox's pointy ear.« »...penetrates us...«

Fox moaned and nuzzled Zett's neck. Zett gently pushed him away, looked at his scarred face and the mismatched eyes, grinned.

»Anyway, how about clones. Aren't you supposed to be married to the corps?«

Fox groaned in frustration. »There's always R&R. Letting off steam. Soldiers do that.« Fox suddenly grew serious. »But you know, when the Army calls, I will follow. No matter what. Even a bad-batcher like me.«

»Yeah. If the order calls, so will I.« Zett kissed Fox again, and pushed him onto his back. »But until then, nobody says we have to do everything alone.«

There was no pain.

Only the living force.

 _»But What We Make«_

 _© 2015 Elliot M. Meredith_


End file.
